Yiddish Love Quotes

Bina, thank you. Bina, listen, this guy. His name wasn't Lasker. This guy-' She puts a hand to his mouth. She has not touched him in three years. It probably would be too much to say that he feels the darkness lift at the touch of her fingertips against his lips. But it shivers, and light bleeds in among the cracks.

Grinning, he grabbed his fisherman’s cap and coat. “I love you,” he whispered quietly. “Ikh hob dikh lib.” He kissed Evie’s head. She rustled in her sleep, turning away. “Fine. I see how it is. I just wasted my best Yiddish on you,” Sam joked to himself.

Landsman recognizes the expression on Dick's face...The face of a man who feels he was born into the wrong world. A mistake has been made; he is not where he belongs. Every so often he feels his heart catch, like a kite on a telephone wire, on something that seems to promise him a home in the world or a means of getting there. An American car manufactured in his far-off boyhood, say, or a motorcycle that once belonged to the future king of England, or the face of a woman worthier than himself of being loved.

God made man because He loves stories

I shared my office on 57th Street with Dr Jacob Ecstein, young (thirty-three), dynamic (two books published), intelligent (he and I usually agreed), personable (everyone liked him), unattractive (no one loved him), anal (he plays the stock market compulsively), oral (he smokes heavily), non-genital (doesn’t seem to notice women), and Jewish (he knows two Yiddish slang words). Our mutual secretary was a Miss Reingold. Mary Jane Reingold, old (thirty-six), undynamic (she worked for us), unintelligent (she prefers Ecstein to me), personable (everyone felt sorry for her), unattractive (tall, skinny, glasses, no one loved her), anal (obsessively neat), oral (always eating), genital (trying hard), and non-Jewish (finds use of two Yiddish slang words very intellectual). Miss Reingold greeted me efficiently.

The whole afternoon might go by without our saying a word. If we do talk, we might never speak in Yiddish. The words of our childhood became strangers to us--we couldn't use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.

Love great first lines and paragraphs. From The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208, a yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker.

As you know, six nights a week we gather together to sing songs we know and love, to dance, to escape our daily lives. But on the seventh night … God created Yiddish theater.

Yiddish word kvelling. It means “bursting with pride and joy for someone you love,” I explained, “especially a child.

From his corner office on the ground floor of the St. Cyril station house, Inspector Dick has a fine view of the parking lot. Six Dumpsters plated and hooped like iron maidens against bears. Beyond the Dumpsters a subalpine meadow, and then the snow¬ capped ghetto wall that keeps the Jews at bay. Dick is slouched against the back of his two-thirds-scale desk chair, arms crossed, chin sunk to his chest, star¬ing out the casement window. Not at the mountains or the meadow, grayish green in the late light, tufted with wisps of fog, or even at the armored Dumpsters. His gaze travels no farther than the parking lot—no farther than his 1961 Royal Enfield Crusader. Lands¬man recognizes the expression on Dick's face. It's the expression that goes with the feeling Landsman gets when he looks at his Chevelle Super Sport, or at the face of Bina Gelbfish. The face of a man who feels he was born into the wrong world. A mistake has been made; he is not where he belongs. Every so often he feels his heart catch, like a kite on a telephone wire, on something that seems to promise him a home in the world or a means of getting there. An American car manufactured in his far-off boyhood, say, or a motor¬cycle that once belonged to the future king of England, or the face of a woman worthier than himself of being loved.

We had to pause for a moment at a red light, and the group clustered tight around Darius as he went on. "Even stranger, Vilnius appears on early maps under a variety of names. To the Germans, Vilnius was called Die Wilde, because it was surrounded by wilderness and swamps. But the irony of a city called the Wilderness is not slight. Well! The Poles called her Wilno, the Lithuanians called her Vilnius, the French and Russians called her Vilna. It is also, of course, Vilna is Yiddish. Sometimes Vilnius appears multiple times on the same map, as though she is a pair of entangled particles that can exist in two places at once. In some ways, it is difficult to think of Vilnius as a single city at all. Czeslaw Milosz famously wrote a poem about Vilnius called 'City Without a Name.' So how shall we think of this city then?

People ask me often, ‘Why do you write in a dying language?’ And I want to explain it in a few words. Firstly, I like to write ghost stories and nothing fits a ghost better than a dying language. The deader the language the more alive is the ghost. Ghosts love Yiddish and as far as I know, they all speak it. Secondly, not only do I believe in ghosts, but also in resurrection. I am sure that millions of Yiddish speaking corpses will rise from their graves one day and their first question will be: “Is there any new Yiddish book to read?” For them Yiddish will not be dead. Thirdly, for 2000 years Hebrew was considered a dead language. Suddenly it became strangely alive. What happened to Hebrew may also happen to Yiddish one day, (although I haven’t the slightest idea how this miracle can take place.) There is still a fourth minor reason for not forsaking Yiddish and this is: Yiddish may be a dying language but it is the only language I know well. Yiddish is my mother language and a mother is never really dead. [Isaac Bashevis Singer’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1978]

Primer of Love [Lesson 44] Fire and gunpowder don't sleep together. ~ Ashanti Proverb from Ghana Lesson 44) Leave the oil and vinegar for your salad dressing -- look for compatibility in your lover. You heard the old adage 'opposites attracts'-- just listen for a few more minutes and you'll next hear KABOOM. That is not the chemistry for long term relationships. You need identical value systems or you're setting yourself up for tsuris (Yiddish for aggravation).Some important compatibilities you should have are God (monotheist+atheist/bad combo), children (wants none+wants four/bad combo), money (important+non-important/bad combo), where you want to live (big city apartment+suburbia, sex (often+often/good combo). What you must agree upon from day one is the mother-in-laws don't live in your house. That's a relationship killer with an ugly hat.

The Talmud expresses this lovely thought: “God found the Jews as one finds grapes in the desert.

Primer of Love [Lesson 85] The worst thing you can do for love is deny it; so when you find that special someone, don't let anyone or anything to get in your way. ~ Unknown Lesson 85)A lover may deny anything to their lover but love. Don't always give in to each other's bullshit. Overindulgence backfires and creates resentment. Honor reasonable requests and an occasional Siren's call from the Deathstar or Mount Doom for Ben & Jerry's at 3 A.M.Don't be anybody's shmateh (Yiddish for rag).Maintain your dignity by telling the overly impulsive lover party to back the fuck off. But, don't be afraidto lose your dignity once in a while. Take out their garbage, rinse out their soiled underwear, plunge their toilet full of crap, squeeze their zits, however humbling and unappetizing.But never deny you lover love because you're angry -- just cancel their credit cards and hide the remote.

Primer of Love [Lesson 53] The truth is not always what we want to hear. ~ Yiddish Proverb Lesson 53) I solemnly promise to tell the truth, the partial truth, anything but the truth -- whatever preserves the relationship. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven."There's a time for candor and a time for white lies, depending whether you want touproot or you want to plant goodwill. There's a time for brutal honesty and a time for diplomacy, depending whether you want to tear down or to build egos. There's a time to talk and a time to refrain from talking, depending if you want to spill the beans on yourself and you want the perfect accompiment for your hot dog. "Does my ass look fat in this dress?" Fuck the truth, there is only one answer: "No, sweetheart, your ass looks great!" Get the picture? "There's a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace." Keep the love, keep the peace! Amen.

Every time with you,” he whispered, “is like the first time. In Yiddish there is a single word that encompasses everything that the future may hold. It has many levels of meaning, but primarily it reveals the power of God’s will. The word is bashert, and it is the basis of hope that out of the bad things that happen to us good can be born. Our meeting was predicated on your parents’ tragic deaths. I believe from the seed of that sad event our fates were sealed, and a power greater than both of us brought us together. Neither of us knew it then, but our love was as unavoidable as the inevitability of the sun to rise at dawn, and the moon to light the sky at night. That is why every time I make love to you, it’s like the first time.

So what had Tia the mother learned from all this? You do your best. That’s all. You go in with the best intentions. You let them know that they are loved, but life is too random to do much more. You can’t really control it. Mike had this friend, a former basketball star, who liked to quote Yiddish expressions. His favorite was “Man plans, God laughs.” Tia had never really gotten that. She thought that it gave you an excuse to not try your hardest because, hey, God is going to mess with you anyway. But that wasn’t it. It was more about understanding that you could give it your all, give yourself the best chances, but control is an illusion. Or

There was a Filipina woman named Gina, who was super cute and a professor of microbiology. Barry had heard of her. She was apparently Layla’s best friend. Her fiancé, Jimmy, was the dean of the engineering school. There was this other guy, Judah, who taught in the Jewish studies program and, incredibly enough, shared Barry’s love of watches. He wore a very under-the-radar vintage Longines with a coveted 13ZN movement, the dial patinated beyond legibility, real Watch Idiot Savant stuff. He had brought two guys from the Jewish studies program faculty with him, both small dudes dressed in overly hot sweaters, whose names Barry kept forgetting. This Judah was as tall as Barry and had some of the same swagger Barry used to have when he was at Princeton, only his came more naturally. He called Barry “a real New York macher,” Yiddish for a guy who gets things done, which totally charmed Barry. His father had used that term with great awe. This guy had friend moves up the ass.

All geography lies topsy-turvy, All my loves turned poison, lovesbane. The crow-consoler, singer,- a coward; All dearest are snuffed out, unknown.

God made man because he loves stories

I have always loved the charming story about the brilliant young student who came to the old, learned rabbi and defiantly exclaimed, “I must tell you the truth! I have become an apikoyres. I no longer believe in God!” “And how long,” asked the elder, “have you been studying Talmud?” “Five years,” the student said. “Only five years,” sighed the rabbi, “and you have the nerve to call yourself an apikoyres?! …” aroysgevorfnY

Mensch tracht, Gott lacht. (Man plans, God laughs.) —Yiddish proverb